


overgrowth

by RoyalHeather



Series: From Beneath the Wicked Earth [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Light Bondage, Oral Sex, Penis In Vagina Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Vines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-13 21:03:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15373260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoyalHeather/pseuds/RoyalHeather
Summary: Vax smiles again. “I missed you,” he says quietly.The gash his death carved inside Keyleth is deep and dark, the edges long crusted over, except he’s pried those edges back open and they’re bleeding again. “I missed you too.”Crow-like, Vax shuffles forward. “Can I kiss you?”





	overgrowth

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during Chapter 7 of From Beneath the Wicked Earth

In the hut the werewolves have set aside for them, Keyleth lights her fingers on fire, watching the flames dance over her skin. It burns, not enough be distressing, just bright flickers of pain. She twists her hand back and forth, to better see the shapes in the ever-changing flames.

One of the shadows surrounding her shifts, and Keyleth whips around, the fire flaring up. Vax crouches a few feet away, his hands held up with his palms out. “Sorry,” he says, with a little, tired smile. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

Frozen, Keyleth watches him, waiting for him to make a move. His weird dark eyes reflect tiny flames, and in the light of the fire his skin looks almost normal. Werewolves howl, far away in the night, Grog somewhere among them as they shepherd his transformation. Her breath sounds loud and shaky in her nose and throat. 

“Hi,” says Vax, his eyes searching her face. His forearms rest on his knees, his black hair lank on his shoulders. “Um. Are you still mad at me?”

Mad isn’t the right word, maybe. Frustrated. Sad. Desperate. Okay, furious, but not at him. “No,” says Keyleth hoarsely. Her hands drift to her lap, the flames dying to a faint glow. The bonfire outside casts chips of orange light through gaps in the ramshackle walls, the ragged hides hung over the door and window. 

Vax smiles again. “I missed you,” he says quietly.

The gash his death carved inside her is deep and dark, the edges long crusted over, except he’s pried those edges back open and they’re bleeding again. “I missed you too.” 

Crow-like, Vax shuffles forward. “Can I kiss you?” 

Keyleth barks a laugh, startled. She knows what she looks like now. “Why?” she says. 

Very slowly, Vax edges towards her. His cold fingers touch her cheeks and Keyleth jumps, gaze fixed on him. Vax is close now, close enough that she can see the little scar on his upper lip and the gold rings of his irises and the pox scars on his cheeks. “Because,” says Vax carefully, cupping her face like she’s made of something fragile, “I’m still in love with you. The only beautiful thing left in this world.” 

“There are a lot of beautiful things,” protests Keyleth faintly, transfixed by the flickering fire in his eyes. “Like sometimes fireflies come out at night…” 

Vax pulls her in for the kiss but it’s clammy and Keyleth flinches back instinctively. “Your lips are cold,” she whispers, and breathes sparks into his mouth. 

Groaning, Vax presses his mouth to hers, fingers digging into her hair around the base of her antlers, and Keyleth kisses up into him. The gash inside her yawns hungrily and she grips Vax tight with a hand on the back of his neck. He tastes like ash and three years of heartbreak. 

“Keyleth,” groans Vax again, his hands dragging down to her shoulders. She rises up on her knees to kiss him better, nails scraping over his skin, and Vax gasps in pain. But he kisses her back, rough and fervent. “Do that again.” 

She drags her ragged nails over the nape of his neck. Hissing, Vax pulls her in close, lips, chest, hips pressing up against her. “Does it hurt?” she murmurs, a thumb pushing up under his knife-sharp jaw. 

“Yes, but don’t stop.” His voice is hoarse and he kisses her, lips dry and still warm, his breath cool. Keyleth slides her hands down his neck, brushing aside hair and feathers, and parts his collar to thumb the hard lines of his collarbone. Still gripping her shoulders, Vax tips his forehead against Keyleth’s. 

His chest and ribs are lean and hard under her palms as she slides her hands over his body, and Keyleth wants to take Vax in, to tear Vax into little pieces and draw him inside her to fill that black hole. She yanks up on his shirt, the tanned hide soft and worn under her fingers, and pulls it over Vax’s head. 

He’s barely free of it before Vax leans in to kiss Keyleth again, teeth scraping over her lower lip, tongue flicking against hers. Keyleth closes her eyes and breathes in smoke and kisses him back, using her fingers to map out the topography of his chest. All the old scars are still there, the record of Vox Machina on his skin. His heartbeat under her palm pulses slow, so slow. Pulling back, Keyleth looks down at him and can just make out the dark wing-shaped mark spreading across his chest. The Raven Queen’s claim on him. Angry sparks dance on Keyleth’s fingers, winking out on Vax’s skin, and he shivers.

“Keyleth,” says Vax, his hands on her waist, his face tilted up towards her, lips parted. He tugs Keyleth up against him, her knees straddling his hips, and Keyleth combs dark hair out of his face. She needs to hold him here. Needs to keep him from flying away. Seizing Vax’s face in her hands, Keyleth kisses him rough and desperate, and coaxes life from the dirt floor, a vine curling around Vax’s ankle. 

Vax leans into her, arms wrapped tight around her waist. “Ah,” he says, as the second vine binds his other ankle, his eyes glittering. 

“Don’t leave,” manages Keyleth.

A pained look cross Vax’s face, and he tips his head into her chest. Keyleth kisses the top of his head, combs her fingers through his tangled locks, and says, “Put your hands behind your back.” 

With a shiver, Vax obeys. His lips travel along Keyleth’s neck, the hollow of her throat, and the gulf inside her yawns wider. More vines sprout, dim green, sparsely leaved, to wind around his wrists and tie them together, curling up his arms. Keyleth can feel through the vines, faintly, the whispering touch on his skin. 

Panting, Vax strains up towards her, and Keyleth kisses and kisses him until her blood turns to sparks and her throat is dry. It burns, on her lips and tongue and between her legs, and she sinks her fingers into Vax’s hair and her tongue into his mouth. Vax groans again as the tendrils of vines curl over his stomach, teasing his hips, coiling over his thighs. 

Breaking free, Keyleth staggers to her feet. Vax kneels before her, his eyes black as pitch, his lips parted. When Keyleth takes a step back, he leans towards her, the vines drawing taut. Keyleth licks her lips, tastes charcoal, bitter and thirsty. She reaches under her tunic to unlace her leggings, stripping them off, kicking away the leather and rags that wrap around her feet and ankles. The firelight gleams faintly in Vax’s eyes, his gaze fixed on her. The sharp scent of her arousal mingles with the smells of smoke and earth and living things. 

Padding back towards Vax, the dirt pressing into her feet, Keyleth threads her hand back through ihs hair, pulling his head to her hips. Vax sighs, mouthing at the sharp point of her hip exposed by the slit of her tunic. The vines around his hips shift and grow, sliding over the bulge in his pants, and Vax groans quietly.

His lips are cold again. Keyleth lights her first two fingers on gentle fire, slides them into his mouth. Vax sucks with his tongue pressing into her fingers, cheeks hollowing, and Keyleth’s insides clench up tight all the way from her between her legs up to her throat. “Okay,” she breathes, drawing her slick fingers out, and guides Vax under her tunic to where her pulse pounds deepest. 

His tongue slides along her, slow and warm and wet, and Keyleth gasps. She curls one hand in his hair, braces herself on his shoulder with the other, her thighs parting to let him in. And Vax sinks into her, his tongue, his lips working her most sensitive parts, and he breathes ragged as he sets a steady, insistent pace. Pressure builds inside Keyleth, and she digs her fingers into his shoulder. Each gasp scrapes out of her, high-pitched. The heat inside her pools between her legs and everything pulls in tighter and tighter and it won’t stop, it won’t stop, it won’t stop - 

Orgasm ripples through her and Keyleth gasps, head dropping forward. Vax’s breath trembles on the slick inside of her thighs. But the black gash inside her pulses, stretching, demanding more. 

Vax tilts his head back, reemerging with slick lips and burning eyes. When Keyleth bends to kiss him she tastes herself on his tongue. The vines spiral around his arms, over his chest, brush his nipples. They wrap around his hips and pull open the laces of his pants like a spring thaw, pulling fabric away to bare his rigid cock. Vax moans into Keyleth’s mouth, shuddering, as one tendril curls around the base of his dick.

Keyleth wants to consume him. She kisses him as she drops to her knees, straddling him, her hands cupping his throat. And when she sinks down onto Vax, his length pushing up inside her, he cries out softly and kisses at her neck, lips dragging over her skin. 

Rolling her hips, Keyleth wraps her arms around his shoulders, burying her face in his hair that smells of smoke. The vines hold Vax in place so that all he can do his press his face into the hollow of Keyleth’s shoulder and pant, wet and ragged. Keyleth holds him tight, tight, tight, her Vax, her raven, and she rocks against him, digging her fingernails into his shoulders. Don’t let him go, don’t let him fly away, and she clenches around Vax, making him shudder. Keep him close, close, close, Keyleth chants in her head to the pace of her grinding hips, the heat flaring back up inside her. 

Vax’s gasping grows loud and desperate, his hips bucking forward. “Keyleth,” he pants, “ah, hah,  _ Keyleth - _ ”

She rocks faster and faster, eyes closed, sparks on her tongue. A shudder ripples through Vax and he bites down on her shoulder, hips snapping up, and it’s that little prick of pain that tips her over the edge. Keyleth keens, high in the back of her throat, her body tightening with the slow lightning strike as she comes. 

Breathing hard, she rests her forehead on Vax’s shoulder. He is still under her except for his trembling, and liquid drips down the inside of her thighs. 

“Ah,” sighs Vax, and his lips brush clumsily over her cheek. Blinking away tears, Keyleth kisses him, soft and tender as new skin. She doesn’t have words, not right now. Not as she pulls off of him to slump back, wobbly-kneed, to the floor. Not as she lets the vines fall away. Not as Vax reaches for her to pull her into his lap, cradling her in his arms, the shadows wrapping around them like raven wings. 

“I wish we had time,” she murmurs at last. 

Vax pushes his face into her hair and whispers, “We do.” 

“Not enough.” Never enough. 

And Vax holds her close, and the shadows and firelight flicker around them, and far away the werewolves still howl.

 


End file.
